Mary for Evangelicals: Toward an Understanding of the Mother of Our Lord.(Brief article)(Book review)

TIM PERRY. IVP Academic, $24 (336p) ISBN 0-8308-2569-X

In this dense, learned study, Perry, a professor of theology at Manitoba's Providence College, attempts to bridge the different accounts of Mary that have long divided Catholics and evangelicals. The book was born of Protestant Perry's nagging sense that his tradition did not give the mother of Jesus her due. He insists, in good Protestant fashion, on grounding his evangelical Mariology in scripture, not in "postbiblical legends." Perry first examines how Mary figures in the New Testament. The major New Testament writers, according to Perry, had wildly different views of Mary, with Luke seeing her as a prophet …